I think I am a changed person. I don’t think there’s a better feeling than helping the needy people,” says Swastik Aryal who found himself transformed after making a service-oriented trip to Belbhanjyang, Dhading, as part of his school curriculum.

Swastik, currently a student of the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma programme at Lalitpur-based Ullens School, was one among 38 students who spent the latter half of March outside the Kathmandu Valley as part of “Project Week”. Students were also sent to Beldada in Chitwan and Siklis in Kaski where they immersed themselves in village life for a week. Many, like Swastik, found it to be a transformative experience.

Organised at the end of their first year of IB with an aim of providing hands-on, experiential learning, “Project Week” takes students outside Kathmandu and into villages to offer them an opportunity to learn more about local communities. Students live with local families, visit local schools, take classes, paint school buildings and make furniture. The project also includes a research component where students conduct household surveys to learn about the socio-economic conditions of the local community.

All this falls in line with the IB programme’s multidisciplinary approach to education. Founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968, the IB programme was introduced in Nepal by Ullens School three years ago. According to the programme’s mission statement, this alternative to +2 and A-Level degrees encourages “students to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”

In addition to the six cross-disciplinary subjects that students are required to study, the programme also includes “Theory of Knowledge”, a 3,000-word extended essay as well as “Creativity, Action, Service” through which students engage in community service and extra-curricular activities. “You’re not really able to put to test the abilities that children learn in school,” says Reshu Aryal, director of Programme and Communications at Ullens School.

source: The Himalayan Times, 3 April 2012